Redbeard
by WinterTheWriter
Summary: Right. I suppose given recent events it's time I explain what everyone's asking. This is a story about a little boy and his dog. This is a story about Redbeard.


I was six years old and the stupid boy.

My talents could barely be consider talents, still raw and unnoticed. My brother taunted and teased me mercilessly, moving things out of my reach and calling me worthless when I couldn't figure out how to get them down. I was nothing. But my parents were helpers. They saw me as the broken part they needed to fix to have a perfect family, and so on a sunny day in late July they took me to the pound.

Very vividly, I remember the smell. It was a distinctly canine scent, mixed in with feces, urine, and dog chow. The hard concrete floor was suspiciously sticky and my mother constantly made sure she had her hand wipes nearby. My nose twitched in disgust and I told her and Father that I don't want a dog, I want to go home, why is this happening? I only received two enigmatic smiles in return.

Rows and rows of dogs barked and pawed at their cage doors, causing me to flinch away and cling to Mother's hand. If Mycroft had come, I was sure he would've been laughing by now. I looked into a few of the cages and was met with distrusting eyes and snarling mouths with big, scary-looking teeth. They frightened me. They made me want to retreat to my Mind Ship until the scary beasts went away.

But there was one who was different. One scruffy, chocolate covered puppy sitting patiently in the centre of his cage, looking at me with a tilted head. When I tilted my head in return, his too-big tongue lolled out the side of his mouth and made me giggle. My parents shared a smile as I let go of Mother's hand and trotted to the cage, sticking my hand through the slats. Immediately, the puppy's tongue licked and laved at my hand in a way that usually would've disgusted me but it didn't.

We took him home that day and I named him Redbeard. He was my second-in-command in my Mind Ship, the only other pirate besides myself allowed there. And we were inseparable. I went to all of his vet appointments and he all of my doctor's. He was my show-and-tell every week despite what my teacher said, because I did not care because /look how amazing he is!/ When I was ten and my brother laughed at me for being disqualified from my science fair for bad-mouthing the head-teacher, Redbeard crawled into my lap and licked away my tears. When I was 17 and so high I couldn't tell my ups from my downs and ended up passed out on the floor, I woke up to Redbeard on my chest. He went everywhere I went and he was the happiest dog in the world and the best friend I'd ever had.

Until, on a sunny day in late July, he got hit by a car. He never strayed from my side when I took him for walks so I seldom used a leash, but what I didn't see that day was the squirrel across the street and the car speeding down at the end of it. I'd never screamed louder or cried harder, and I'd never hated and blamed myself more.

He survived, somehow. The vet prescribed several types of medicine and operated on my dog for hours but he survived. As with every incident, there were repercussions. Gone was the happy, innocent dog who always wanted to snuggle and play, replaced instead by a wounded animal who spent his time hiding under my bed and whimpering. His joyous, enthusiastic licks became small, tentative pokes of his tongue that only appeared if you actually touched his mouth. Instead of jumping into my arms he'd jump out of them, whining in pain as he limped off to hide.

It was devastating to watch. I was almost 18 and just the sight of my dog, my Pirate Redbeard, brought tears to my eyes. Mycroft judged me for showing sentiment. He was at Uni at the time and every phone-call we had ended with him admonishing me for "getting too close." It's just an animal, he'd say. You're over-reacting. Everything dies in the end and everything leaves.

I didn't listen, obviously. Redbeard was a permanent fixture in my life. He would never leave me. He'd live in my dorm in Uni and we'd solve cases together when I graduated and I'd be the most loved detective in the world. Me and my dog.

That dream was shattered two months later. Redbeard was worse, now. Sickly with age and remnants of the accident, he would soil himself and be too ill to move away. I had to carry him up and down the stairs and onto the couch. We got a fenced-in backyard for us to physically lay him in between he couldn't go on walks anymore. He was skin and bones and sadness, everything your best friend shouldn't be. I was 18 when my parents made the decision to put him down, and I hated myself for agreeing with them.

Just like every other vet's appointment, I went with him. He laid in my lap as the vet gave him the last shot he would ever feel. It took twenty minutes, and during that time I sobbed like I was 6 again and stroked his hair and told him I loved him. And with one last, feather-light lick to my hand, he put his head down and never raised it again.

I was alone again.

I wanted to stay alone because everything dies in the end and everything leaves. My dog was gone and so was my childhood, my happiness, and my trust for anything other than myself. I grew up and my brother went on like nothing had happened, returning with the name-calling and the ridicule that I'd started to believe. When I left Uni, he made me feel like a kid again, but a kid before Redbeard, before happiness.

I was 25 and the stupid man, and I resolved to never love again.


End file.
